USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Wilbraham > Historical address, delivered at the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Wilbraham, June 15, 1863 > Part 12
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The hills are mountains, and prop the heavens with everlasting support ; the " goat rocks," half way up the sloping hillside, rise grim and gray, and my voice echoes in the cave beneath, peopled with shadows and half-terrors ; the Scantic River is a flood rolling in might and majesty toward the sea ; the old mill in the mountain-pass grinds away, and I grope carefully in its dusky light, with a childish curiosity and wonder ; and no huntsman " in at the death " so thrills with trenin- lous delight, as I, when drawing the bleating flock closer and closer, they stand huddled beneath the great buttonwood, at the sheep-washing. Mr. President, you never saw such a tree as stood before my grandmother's door; it was a mighty tree !- the noon-tide glory rested upon its head, its branches reached from the east to the west, and touched the morning and the evening ; it was a wonderful tree, by mid-day or moonlight ; beauty, grandeur, and strength had their abiding-place in it; in the winter, cold and bare, it stood shadowless, severe and unrelenting ; in sum- mer, it was benignant, kind, and merciful; it always had the same aspect with the heavens, and, like the heavens, seemed to have stood forever !
But the prosaic suggestions of mature years hint that all this is a sort of child- ish wonder and exaggeration. As I was riding into town this morning, and came upon the sandstone ridge which skirts our western borders, I quoted the words of the Preacher, " One generation goeth and another generation cometh, but the earthi abideth forever." The mountains stood in front, familiar, unchanged. I re- marked to my brother their permanence and rest, their familiar look and aspect, to which he replied, "They are not as big as they were." "Not as big as they were!" that tames me down to the fact that something is gone from all this ont- ward world; commonplaces and mediocrity have usurped the place of wonder and beauty. A great religious poet has said it well : -
" There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, - The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoc'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
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" The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare ; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair ; The sunshine is a glorious birth, - But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the carth."
But not more vivid to-day are the impressions of childhood senses, than the in- eidents of moral and intellectual life which cluster in the mild sunshine of recol- lection. I have been to school this morning in the old school-house, and relieved the weariness of those heavy, lagging hours by enterprise of trade and barter, with spelling, geography and arithmetic; 'twixt gusts of pedagogie vigilance, I have mixed a little practice in values, and swapped jack-knives with Silas Chapin, and paid him difference of string and pewter phunmet - Silas Chapin, the best judge of a jack-knife or steel-trap of all the boys in Distriet Number Ten ! I have been to meeting, in the old meeting-house on the green, and waited patiently through hymn and prayer and sermon, only asking my father, When will the minister be done ? And when that venerable man of God closed the Book, saying, "The remainder of this subject in the afternoon, and, in the mean time, may God bless his Word," I breathed a long breath ; yet wondered why the good man spoke so contemptuously of the holy interval in the services of the Lord's house. To me it was no mean time, but the best time of all the day. There are faces here, too, at this board, a single glance from which kindles all that religious past into vivid light. There, before me, sits Deacon Summer Sessions, who looks no older to me now than when in the old meeting-house he exercised his office of tithingman, and divided with equanimity, which I always wondered at, his reverent mind 'twixt the humble worship of Almighty God, and a holy frown on the boys. There is Deacon John Morris! Can I ever forget his trembling tenor ? It struggles in my breast even now, and wakes a thousand reverent associations, as some sweet wind from heaven, - whence it cometh or whither it goeth we know not, -awakes a half-forgotten prayer ; and there is John Newell, that god of song, whose right- hand, trembling in holy rhythm, swayed, as with a magician's wand, the multitudin- ons voices of the village choir.
Mr. President, my heart has leaped like a roe, this morning, at the promise of a visit to my grandmother's ; and I have been compelled to correct my imagination by my judgment, for I verily thought I heard the squalling of the geese, sure har- binger of my near approach to her door ! You will all forgive me for saying, that the judgment of my manhood puts no correction, and charges no error, to the reverent admiration with which my boyish mind looked on that venerable woman. How she loved me ! What persuasion in her voice, what satisfaction in her kiss ! O blessed ties of kindred blood ! O heavenly grace of womanhood! What dig- nity ! What urbanity ! What discretion ! What tender piety ! If those mysteri- ous influences which mingle in the make of men, descending from generation to generation, giving tone and color to thought and feeling, may be matter of grati- tude to the Inspirer of our frame, I am grateful that the fountains of my life were set so near a heart in which gushed so gentle blood.
It is impossible, and it is hardly grateful, on an occasion like this, to thrust aside
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those sentiments of filial regard which recollection awakens, and which press upon the mind with something of the authority of claim. Our fathers take their seats by our side whether we will or no ; and that is indeed an unfilial heart that does not involuntarily give them room. I have counted one in my company that is not herc. The century was a little too slow for him, and he could not wait. Mr. President, you knew my father. He was a man gifted in intellectual and moral powers above the ordinary measure of men ; of limited and provincial expe- rience, his mind showed rays of native light, such as enfolds the round sphere of truth. He was a century before his time, and he lacked the ingenuity to justify himself to the present. But he was never discouraged concerning God or man. He was one of the firmest believers, and one of the most ardent and invincible hopers I ever knew. He was almost a moral enthusiast, and in that fact is to be found the account of some of the most striking defects of his mind and character. He was a polemic in politics, morals, and religion. Never can I forget the sharp skirmishes and word-battles with neighbors before the open evening fire. His house was a natural resort for ministers, but he agreed with none of them ; and his theological discussions were always a claim for a more wide-open and humane interpretation of the divine Goodness. Yet, notwithstanding all this difference and kcen dissent, in a period less tolerant than the present, no man of God ever went ont from beneath that roof without leaving his deep and heart-felt benedic- tion. I can never lose the impress of his religious influences, though he was called a doubter by almost everybody. It seems to me that he had the finest ap- preciation of childhood of any man I ever saw ; - his appreciation of young men was not so keen, through defeet of education or limitation of experience. Can I ever forget the stories he told, the hymns he sung, with a voice like the month of June, and the lessons of love and good-will to all, which he enforced with such tender persuasion ? O debt of filial love !- sweet burden of gratitude, from which my heart would never go free ! My friends, I could not help this, and Iknow you will forgive me since there is nobody here but ourselves.
Natives of Wilbraham : What instinct has brought us here to-day, from afar, to commemorate the establishment of human society on these hills ? It is the instinct most deeply rooted in man's nature, affirming that human society is the chief in- terest on earth ; that, wherever human sonls are spoken into being and the solitary set in families, there a thousand ties of earth and heaven centre, drawing toward the one Almighty providential purpose.
In swift review to-day, we have been through the records of those early be- ginnings of the fathers, made in such industry, frugality, and piety, as gives ns all an honorable ancestral pride, and which a hundred years have matured to this de- grec of beauty and strength. Have we not cause for gratitude that our lot has been so happy, and that here each generation has been able to bequeath some better things to the generation that should come after, - thus making every man partaker of the power of humanity ? We are surrounded to-day by those tokens of material, intellectual, moral, and religious growth, which, to the observer of man and his destiny, are the fairest objects on which the eye can rest, and the loftiest which the mind can contemplate. An intelligent industry has made these hills and plains a fit habitation for man. A wise regard for that knowledge which puts man in superiority to the powers around him, has placed within the reach of all, the means of intelligence ; and those common sentiments of our nature which
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give an upward aspect to human lot, inspired afresh by Christianity, have spread over all a sky of faith, and set many benignant stars of heavenly guidance. What do we need in the future but to be awakened to these ? We want no new lights, so much as we need to feel the sun that flames above us! All human prosperity, all beanty and adorning of intelligence, and all providential guidance and grace are contained in these.
Our centennial comes amid the agonies of civil war, but let no man's heart, in- spired with love of freedom, fail. The clear north wind will yet drive these clonds away, and the pure heavens will spread out over all the land, in which all are free. Then shall a new career begin for man on earth; for the civilization that has made us prosperous and happy here, on these hill-sides, shall be the common faith and sentiment of mankind.
REV. DR. RAYMOND : Mr. President, there is one man at the table whose voice we shall be glad to hear. It is true that he has already spoken elsewhere, but however copiously the Doctor may have poured himself out, he has always something left to say. I move, sir, that you call up the orator of the day, Rev. Dr. Stebbins.
" Dr. Stebbins, Dr. Stebbins," called out many voices.
THE PRESIDENT : Doctor, you hear the call. It is loud and impera- tive. Let it be answered.
Dr. Stebbins responded as follows : -
MR. PRESIDENT : I fear my too partial friend, Dr. Raymond, did not take coun- sel of the brotherhood and sisterhood at the other end of the tables, and that your own kindly heart has for once hazarded an infliction upon already weary ears, -for if these guests are as weary of listening to my voice as I am of using it, it long since ceased to be "music " to their ears. The very flattering expressions in which the Judge on my left (Judge Merrick) has been pleased to speak of my addressf and the willing and patient ear which you lent to it through two mortal hours o. sweltering heat, can be accounted for in but one way, and that, -to these friends, innocent as infaney of antiquity and "vain genealogies," against too curiously prying into which the apostle warned all good Christians, -I will, with your per- mission, Mr. President, craving pardon of the apostle, explain. Our venerable and most worthy president, friends, is a type of a Wilbraham man. The best blood of the first families of Wilbraham is in his veins. Tidal sympathy and incorrupti- ble integrity are the chief ingredients of that blood. For a quarter of a century no father in Hampden County lay down to die in disquiet lest his children should be nneared for or his widow defrauded or his estate wasted ; for to the hands of our president, as Judge of Probate, he could confidently commit wife, child, estate, and know that all would be well ; and never did suspicion breathe a syllable against his integrity anywhere ; his tongue always spoke the warm word that was in his heart, and men listened with delight. These facts may seem somewhat remote from the point which I am to elneidate, but their appositeness and force will soon be seen by every attentive listener, and will fully vindicate their introduction, thongh somewhat trying to the modesty of my venerable friend and kinsman. For
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be it known to all ye present, if any success has attended my words to-day, either in gratifying your curiosity or taste, either in instructing or delighting you, it is all, all dne, wholly due, to the fact, that I have some blood which is common to his veins and mine, for my great-grandfather married his grandfather's sister. [JJudge Morris, the president, interrupting, My grandfather's cousin.] What a taking off is that ? Did ever ancestral pride receive a deadlier stab ? What ! so thin the blood ! Good heavens, if in my poor watery veins such scattered drops can give such vital force and strength, what must not be the vigor and endurance of both soul and body of him in whose firm sinews and large heart it courses in equal portions ? At four-score years the voice is clarion, and the step firm ! The Bliss blood forever !
This thinning, this dilution of blood in me, renders it possible for me to make an apology, which otherwise I should hardly have ventured on. My friend, on my left, Rev. Dr. Russell, is responsible for all this day's deficiencies. He was called, by his good old mother, Wilbraham, to speak the word on her hundredth birthday ; and naughty boy, as he never was before, he disobeyed his worthy parent. Good Inek to him that he was so far off' she could not lay her correcting hand upon him, - for our good mother was a diligent and devout reader of Scripture, and had an enviable faith in Solomon's system of family government, - as had he been within reach he would have performed certain saltatory feats which are not defined in works on dancing. [Laughter.]
The fact was just this, he would not mind ; but I, with the vigor of the venera- ble mother's arm distinctly in my mind, did obey, but under difficulties. For the records did not reach me for more than three months after this older son was disobe- dient. It is no fault of the committee of arrangements, but his exclusively, that I should have done violence to facts and figures sometimes, but for the timely aid of my honored friend, the president of the day, and some of the vice-presidents.1
But you know, Mr. President, that it is of the nature of this blood, where there is anything to be done, to do it ; when there is any call, to hear it ; and I do not re- pent that I undertook the work, though you may, for I have seen how steadily our obseure town has improved in all that is most worthy and desirable.
Why, sir, in my school-days, hardly a boy had the presumption to study gram- mar, hardly a girl ventured on arithmetic. The first geography, with an atlas, was introduced in my day; and I well remember the amazement of the rest of the scholars when a boy ventured into vulgar fractions. I think I was the first teacher who used Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic in town, and I think, by the twinkle of some eyes which I now see, that my first experiment, down in the woods near Mr. Cross's, is well remembered : - The boys sent ont to run, to keep themselves warm ; the girls going to the fire by classes, to keep from freezing ; the splendid delight of the instantaneous conflagration of the old fireplace full of green white- birch wood, and the deep mortification of its as instantaneous extinguishment : the dropping of the pitch from the pine boards of the ceiling into the master's hair ; the use of a dilapidated door for a black-board ; and, above all, the discovery and uncovering of a nest of squirrels, which had gone into winter-quarters in the wall.
1 Dr. Russell remarked, in his chair, that he had the best of reasons, which his mother accepted at once, when he gave them to her; one of which, and the only one which he need to name, was, that she had another son, Dr. Stebbins, who could do it better.
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All these are fresh in memory. Now, what fine school-houses ! what admirable teachers ! The method of cultivation, and the amount of crops, have also changed for the better almost infinitely. The lean, lank, long-legged, long-haired cows and oxen of the early time would frighten even Pharaoh's lean kine. What a contrast to the fat, sleek, glossy herds of my friend, Paoli Lathrop, Esq., whom I see down the table, who has done enough for the improvement of stock, in the State, to satisfy any man's ambition but his own.
In all things, the town has improved. Fields, vehicles, tools, machines, apparel, houses, furniture, -all, all has changed, and for the better. The morals are better, the culture is better, the whole intellectual, moral, and religious nature is better. They are simply croakers who say that the old days were better than these days, old institutions better than modern ones. They defame their ancestors who say that they did not leave the world better than they found it. Can we here and now, met in honor of their memory, say that our fathers left a worse heritage to their sons than they found, or that they so demoralized their children that we have wast- ed and spoiled our inheritance ? No, sir; no, sir.
I know there are some men who go through the world backwards; they never see the path before; they are always whining after the leeks and onions they have left ; they never see the grapes and figs and olives of the land of promise ; they advance backward, however, because the crowd presses them on. [Laughter.] They grum- ble, as they approach the land flowing with milk and honey, that they are forced away from the gnats and frogs. Were it not for the inexhaustible patience and mnerey of the Infinite Father, they would never reach heaven. But he gently guides them as they back along up the straight and narrow way complaining that it is cramped and steep, - not capacious, as the old road, which was not only very broad and all the way down hill, but easy to walk in, as everybody went there. Still they back along up, touched gently now on this side, now on that, as they near the one or the other edge of the way, grumbling still at the new kind of light that beams npon them, and the lengthening days, till they are safe over the sapphire thresh- old, on the golden pavement, in the shadowless day. How busy and patient the good angels must be, for many days, in reconciling them to their new and strange condition !
Enongh, Mr. President, more than enough. I beg pardon for occupying so much of your precious time, as the day is beginning to decline. I thank you all most cordially, from my very heart's core, for the flattering reception you have given my words this day. The infinite benediction rest upon you and your children evermore.
The band gave some stirring music.
THE PRESIDENT : The hour has arrived at which this meeting should adjourn. The occasion has been one of rich enjoyment and instruction. May the civil war raging with such fury soon cease, and may our posterity never be called to rescue the altars of freedom from the pollution of treason.
Once more a vote was called for, and unanimously given, directing the committee of arrangements to obtain and print the address.
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DR. STEBBINS : Mr. President, I move that this meeting adjourn to June 15th, 1963.
JUDGE MERRICK : Mr. President, as I am sure I shall be under the necessity of being absent, and as my absence will cause little grievanco to those who may attend, I second the motion of Dr. Stebbins.
THE PRESIDENT: By virtue of my high office, the highest I ever held in my life, I declare this meeting adjourned to June 15th, 1963.
After many a hearty hand-shaking, and parting congratulations on the success which had attended the celebration, the multitude dispersed to their homes, with renewed respect for their ancestors, and with new vows to merit and win the respect of posterity.
It should be stated here as a conclusion of the history of the celebra- tion, that the town voted, November, 1863, to have " five hundred copies of the Address printed for distribution among the families in town," and two hundred and fifty copies more were ordered by the Committee.
The following account of the celebration appeared in the Springfield Daily Republican, June 16, 1863 : -
THE WILBRAHAM CENTENNIAL.
ADDRESS BY REV. RUFUS P. STEBBINS, D. D. - THE CROWD. - THE DINNER- THE SPEECHIES.
Monday, June 15, was a memorable day in the annals of Wilbraham. As mem- bers of a scattered household return on thanksgiving day to festivities and joyous reunions around the paternal fireside, came the sons and daughters of Wilbraham, from Maine and from Minnesota, and from the States between, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of their native town. All Wilbraham was out with go-to-meeting clothes on, to welcome the wanderers, and make the occasion pass pleasantly. And in this they were wholly successful, for it was a time of unbroken enjoyment, even to the few who chanced to be there while so unfortunate as to own some other town as a birthplace, and doubly enjoyable to those whose childhood was passed within the precincts of the quiet old town.
About eleven o'clock, the procession formed in front of the Congregational Church, and marched to Fiske Hall on the academy grounds, under the direction of Samuel M. Bliss, marshal of the day, and escorted by the Holyoke Brass Band. Here every available seat and standing-place was quickly appropriated, and the large audience, although in many instances crowded to uncomfortableness, remained quiet until the close of the exercises. Upon the platform were the oldest men in Wilbraham, and some of her returning sons, who declined being considered as gnests. The exercises at the hall were begun by a prayer from Rev. John B. Skeele, of Wilbraham, after which Judge Morris, Sen., of this city, upon whom appropriately and gracefully fell the honors of the presiding officer, made a brief and happy specch, alluding to the occasion as a proud and joyous one, and welcoming
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home the sons and the sons' sons of old Wilbraham, when he introduced the orator of the day, Rev. Rufus P'. Stebbins, D. D., of Woburn.
In Dr. Stebbins' address, historical fact and impressive eloquence, minute detail and irresistible humor were admirably commingled. No greater compliment could be paid to the town and the occasion than that they were thought worthy of such an elaborate effort by so distinguished a speaker. Dr. Stebbins divided the history of the town into four periods, the first beginning with the time Nathaniel Hitel- cock cleared, in 1731, his two aeres, and lived there, with no neighbors nearer than Springfield to plague him, and closing with the setting off of the Springfield Mountains, June 16, 1741, -a period devoted principally to clearing in the north part of the town ; the second period including the time the town was a precinct,- from 1741 to 1763, -when they were perfecting the arrangements for the settle- ment of the "worthy Noah Merrick," as their pastor ; the third period extending from the incorporation of the town, in 1763, to 1782, when it was divided into par- ishes, and including the Revolutionary War; and the fourth from 1782 to the present time. The speaker reviewed the whole of these periods, adorning the smallest particulars in such beautiful and appropriate language that cach became thereby much more interesting to the hearer. The peroration of the address was eloquent to a high degree, and closed with a noble apostrophe to coming genera- tions to sustain the Christian manhood of their ancestors and the good name of Wilbraham. Dr. Stebbins spoke two hours and a half, and it is impossible, in so brief a space, to do justice to an address of such length and excellence. By a unanimons vote of the audience, a copy was requested for printing.
Turning now from this intellectual treat, the procession reformed and marched to the academy dining-hall, where had been made ample provision for the suste- nanec of the inner man. Grace was said by Rev. Dr. Raymond. After grace, the usual knife-and-fork chorus, with the accompanying pantomime, was enacted with a vigor which proved that the descendants of the old stock knew what to do with a good dinner. Rev. Mr. Peabody said grace after the meal, when Judge Morris called upon Judge Pliny Merrick, of Boston and of the Supreme Court, whom he introduced as a grandson of the first minister of Wilbraham. Judge Mer- rick paid a high eulogium to the oration and orator of the day, and alluded in fitting terms to his worthy ancestor. Ilis brief but excellent speech was followed by the singing of the old ballad, the first composed in Wilbraham before the Rev- olution, of which a copy remains beginning, -
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